late 15c., from Middle French élégant (15c.), from Latin elegantem (nominative elegans) “choice, fine, tasteful,” collateral form of present participle of eligere “select with care, choose.” Elegans was originally a term of reproach, “dainty, fastidious;” the notion of “tastefully refined” emerged in classical Latin. Related: Elegantly.

(From Mathematics) Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than “clever”, “winning” or even cuspy. The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exup’ery, probably best known for his classic children’s book “The Little Prince”, was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” [Jargon File] (1994-11-29)

noun 1. Pathology. a skin disorder caused by the burrowing of dog or cat hookworm larvae under the dermal tissue and manifested as a progressing red streak. creeping eruption creep·ing eruption (krē’pĭng) n. A skin disorder characterized by itchiness and a progressive netlike tunneling in the skin caused by the burrowing larvae of various parasites, […]

jargon /kree’ping fee’chr-izm/ (Or “feature creep”) A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. “The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism.” More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because […]

jargon /kree’ping fee’-chr-i:`t*s/ A variant of creeping featurism, with its own spoonerism: “feeping creaturitis”. Some people like to reserve this form for the disease as it actually manifests in software or hardware, as opposed to the lurking general tendency in designers’ minds. -ism means “condition” or “pursuit of”, whereas -itis usually means “inflammation of”. [Jargon […]

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